


Nothing More

by fireandrain



Category: Reign (TV)
Genre: F/M, Non-royalty AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-02
Updated: 2015-01-02
Packaged: 2018-03-04 21:27:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3090671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fireandrain/pseuds/fireandrain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which he's just a boy and she's just a girl, and that makes all the difference.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing More

**Author's Note:**

> Because this is an AU I had to tweak the story a bit from the canon that resides in the show. Enjoy!

**i.**

Before the evening star begins its journey across the sky, there lies a boy with ocean eyes and thoughts of consternation. His muscles strain, a welding hammer nestled in his grasp, thin trickles of sweat tripping through his sandy colored brows at each blow. Hours have passed since he was given the opportunity to forge a sword for a nearby nobleman, his body screaming for a moment to breathe.

“You strike any harder, you’ll shatter the whole wretched thing.”

Ansel’s discomfort sends the boy’s tool going in softer, a skip of his heart keeping him back. In the corner, etching out from the shadows, a man, no older than forty, stands to inspect the day’s inventory. The boy continues without as much as a nod. In his dreams, he is the best of his trade. Though he knows, deep down, dreams are left only for Kings, if only he were so lucky.

The old man had been generous. He took this boy in, seeing the heed in his eyes and the rise in his voice, the sixteen year old was enough to tide over the business. The work of a blacksmith had occupied his time, even picking up traits as a swordsmith, all to feed his family. Ansel bore no sons and his wife had been dead for three summers past, he only had his shop and the customers that traveled in. In this boy, he saw promise, he saw the normalcy that he had been given once at his age, before life had taken it away.

This was monotonous work, tiresome work, work that keeps his heart thriving and eyes aching. Arm swung, inhibition set, momentum driving the instant a fleeting gaze follows towards a glimmering blade. One spark flies against his cheek, nipping at the flushed skin as metal intercepts with metal once more, it’s beginning to darken outside. His mother, stoic and calculating, will expect him home by the time he’s done with this project. His father, wild and defiant, will most likely be missing in action. Husband and wife, carried through by the word of God and harboring enough bitterness to ruin the lands of France with one glance.

One hit far too hard.

He hissed, a divot cracked in the base of the sword from a rogue swing, he prayed this one could pass as useful. He had his family to think of, his mother and her copious children she was so eager to keep alive in a world of mindless cruelty. His brothers and sisters looked up to him to keep their stomachs full, to drive the hunger from their eyes, to ensure that their deaths wouldn’t come before their tenth name day. The pressure upon his shoulders was enough to make him crumble each night, no matter how hard he chose to ignore the trembling. He tried, nonetheless, to appreciate his good fortune, it was as if Jesus Christ himself had come down to bless this workforce, paid apprenticeship and all.

There had been a time when food was scarce, his mother’s fingers had knotted and squeezed with apprehension each morning, his father’s face grew gaunt by the passing days. That was when his younger sister Elisabeth had been married off to a far off farmer in a village he never knew to remember. The man had been widowed twice before and had a daughter three years her senior. She had been fourteen and yet, it was for the interest of the family and his mother had left it at that.

He never glances up from his work, even as Ansel begins to put away the coins from his daily clienteles and covers the windows, this boy can only focus on the prongs now holding a sweltering blade. He places it, every bone in his body creaking under sudden movements, in a wooden holster against the stone wall adjacent to him. Sweat steams off his body, thick, leather gloves peeling from calloused hands as daylight seeps towards the ground. He glances to Ansel once more and nods farewell.

In his mind, he’s doing this for centuries to come, he shapes the cold, greyed works of steel into something far more meaningful. Today he is just a mere novice in the world of creation and pain, but tomorrow, oh tomorrow is a land filled with wonders. He could take over the business, go from village to village, become just a boy with a hammer and transmute himself into something worth remembering. This boy, christened Francis, would take his dreams and form them into the stars that lined every time the day slips into sleep.

Even as the evening wind covers the cloak he drapes around him, a chill never ceases to crawl up his spine.

 

**…**

 

This is the eighth time this week that the goat had started its tyrannical reign in the world of farm animals. It started off subtle, the chickens would scurry away in squawking crowds, the pigs squeal as they rush towards the corners of their pens, even Sterling found a reason to be petrified of the furry tyrant. The deerhound had put on a strong façade for his masters, though deep down, he was shaking at the mere sight of the mad goat.

The girl would have none of it, she refused to let such a bully roam in the midst of her farm and she set to end it before any other of her furry friends would suffer any longer. The stool nipped at her skirt, the splinters dragging out the beige cotton, her shaky hands placed firmly on two udders of the tormentor. The bucket screeched as she began the milking, at every second, the goat eyed the pigs, her furious chewing of grass growing vehement. Behind the pair, a raucous bout of laughter erupted from the Inn.

“You’re the worst, don’t you know that? It’s not nice to poke fun at others, no matter if you think it’s humorous or not, Janet.”

Janet the Goat side-eyed her and continued her chewing, the girl huffed and went about her work.

“Sometimes, I swear, you’re the most difficult thing I have to deal with, and I have to pluck the chickens. Ah yes, you probably think that’s funny, don’t you? Me plucking the chicken, getting feathers stuck in my shoes, blood on my hands from chopping off their heads. I don’t like doing it, but mother insists on me doing it so she can pass out the drinks.” She rambles to Janet, squeezing and pulling to fill the tin bucket as a roll of wind slips past them.

She hated the Inn, never enjoyed the work of passing out ale and trays of fried pig soaked in berries. The grease smearing on her hands and mussing the dust that collected on her skin. In times of work, she could only close her eyes and think of her home. Her real home.

Her father had died only two years ago, he left a great deal of money and yet, mother thought the best thing to do was move. Scotland held the still beating of a heart, all her memories tucked away and left to rot, France was the land where things could be easier. The boat ride had taken months, finding the Inn had taken what seemed even longer. The elderly couple who ran it shortly before them had died, their children seeing no use in the decrepit land they grew up on. The girl and her mother were the only ones who had taken interest, forming stability was something they both had taken for granted.

“Oh really, Janet. You need to leave the poor pigs alone. They have weeks left to live and you have years. It’s not fair in the slightest.”

Janet returned her words with a swift kick and butt of the head.

“Fine! Stay there, see this rope? Yes, well, there’s no way of you getting out of this, I’ve tied it to this-”, she pointed the stump in front of them, “and this is where you will stay. Mother told me to keep you away and I’m doing just that.” She gathered the bucket and seat into her arms and sauntered through the unruly Earth, the blades of grass nipping at her shins.

She dreamed of a place where the world was kind, where the Inn stopped smelling of stale wine, where her newly formed friends stayed longer on their visits from town, where she was free to do what she pleased. Her feet bit down on the leather on her boots, a gift graciously given to her on her seventeenth name day, the stench of sweat infiltrated her lungs as she passed the entrance to her home.

“Mary, love, could you come here a moment?” Spotted and collected, Mary looked through the opened doors and gawked at her mother.

The sun was beginning to set around her, the evening star gaining the strength to flash towards her eyes, as brown as her mother’s were blue. She held her gaze, a sense of dread rising in the pit of her throat.

“Of course, mother. What is it?”

A man, no younger than thirty, flashed her a sordid grin and picked up the hollow pitcher of ale. Mary nodded, setting down her things and snatched the pitcher, her mother skillfully following as she made her way to the back kitchen.

“A nobleman, far better than we both could imagine. Mary, you have to get acquainted with him.” Time was ticking for her, a husband meant getting away from the Inn, it meant children and entitlement for a man she would barely know.

“I’m fine with finding them on my own, mother, they will know when I am interested.” She brushed it off, filling the tin pitcher and started towards the tables once more.

Off in the distance, she heard the call of a goat and the shuffle of ten terrified wailing piglets.


End file.
